Who’s the better Judge? By: Brian Walker

Problem Have you ever wondered who you would rather have cut your cake? Well I have and that’s why I decided to find out if gender affects your ability to judge 3d objects and measurements. This deals with the spatial part of the brain.

Background Information The visual spatial area of the brain is largely believed to be in the right hemisphere of the brain. It is generally considered 96% right hemisphere having control of visual spatial functions. Those with lesions, damage to the brain, to the right hemisphere of the brain have difficulties recognizing even familiar objects when viewed from a different perspective. This makes the belief that the right hemisphere being largely dominant, alongside the parietal lobes, in the visual and spatial functioning of the brain more accurate and believable. The male and female brains are affected by the environment they are raised in,but also even as infants the brains are different. Women have superior skills in empathy, speaking, sensing emotional tones in conversations, emotional and artistic expressiveness, carrying out pre-planned tasks, and recalling paragraphs and lists of words and such. While men tend to excel in the areas of independence, spatial and mathematical skills dominance, rank related aggression, and other things. There are plenty of exceptions for sure, amazing mathematician and physicist women, and men with amazing language skills, however it is when you look at populations on a much larger scale that you find the generalizations. Each hemisphere of the brain is dominant for other behaviors. For example, it appears that the right brain is dominant for spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery and music. The left brain may be more dominant for calculations, math and logical abilities. However these are generalizations within large groups of people, there are of coarse exceptions in all things.

Hypothesis I predict that the men in this experiment will have better test results than the women. This is because I have heard from multiple people that there have been tests conducted showing that men have a more spatially dominant brain.

Materials Paper, 3 8x8 inch cakes, a butter knife, a tape measurer, and a laptop.

Procedure 1 have the tester fold a paper into thirds and measure the folds. 2 have the tester observe the spinning girl at the website I’ll list later. 3 cut an 8x8 inch cake into ¼ s and have the tester cut the ¼ in half, measure the half.

Results (Guys) Cake Paper Girl Chase could make the girl switch directions. Scott could make the girl change directions. Kody could not make the girl change directions Henry could not make the girl change directions Cody could not make the girl change directions. Mr.Bauerle could make the girl change directions. The spinning girl can be located at this website if you want to try it yourself: icablog/?p=27 Chase folded the paper at 8.7cm and 21cm Scott folded the paper at 9cm and 18cm Kody folded the paper at 9cm and 17.5cm Henry folded the paper at 8.9cm and 17.8cm Cody folded the paper at 7.7cm and 15.9cm Mr.Bauerle folded the paper at 9.5cm and 19.25cm. All papers were 26.6cm wide Chase’s cake was 3.5x3.75inch he cut it exactly in half at 1.75inch. Scott’s cake was 3.5x3.25inch he cut it exactly in half at 1.75inch. Kody’s piece of cake was 4x3.5inch he cut it exactly in half at 2inch. Henry’s piece of cake was 4x3.5inch he cut it exactly in half at 2inch. Cody’s piece of cake was 3.5x3.75inch he cut it exactly in half at 1.75inch Mr.Bauerle’s piece of cake was 4x4inch he cut it exactly in half at 2inch.

Results (Girls) girl Andi could make the girl change directions. Sarah could make the girl change directions. Chelsey could make the girl change directions. Julia could make the girl change directions. Kasady could make the girl change directions Mrs.Riffel could not make the girl change directions. The spinning girl can be located at this website if you want to try it yourself: eurologicablog/?p=2 7 Paper Andi folded the paper at 8.8cm and 17.2cm. Sarah folded the paper at 8.8cm and 17.25cm Chelsey folded the paper at 8cm and 17.5cm Julia folded the paper at 8.7cm and 18.2cm Kasady folded the paper at 9cm and 17.9cm Mrs.Riffel folded the paper at 8.6cm and 17.6cm All papers were 26.6cm wide Cake Andi’s piece of cake was 4x4inch she cut it at 1.75inch. Not exact Sarah’s piece of cake was 3.5x3.75inch and she cut it exactly at 1.75inch. Chelsey’s piece of cake was 3.5x3.75inch and she cut it exactly at 1.75inch. Julia’s piece of cake was 4x3.5inch she cut it at 3.75inch. not exact Kasady’s piece of cake was 3.5x3.75inch she cut it at 1.5inch. Not exact Mrs.Riffel’ piece of cake was 3.5x3.25inch she cut it at 1.75inch

Paper results Julia and Sarah had near perfect 1 st folds Henry Scott and Kody had near perfect first folds Henry and Kody also had near perfect second folds

Results (overall) girl The object was to be able to turn the girl. The guys did worse on this test. 5/6 had girls could turn the girl. Only 2/6 guys could turn the girl Paper The object was to fold the paper into thirds as exactly as possible. The papers were 26.6cm wide and into thirds that is 8.86_ repeating. cake The object of the cake test was to cut it as exactly in half as possible. The guys definitely won in this area cutting each cake perfectly, while the girls had 3 mess ups. Overall the boys won this one. The girls won this one.

Conclusion Overall my hypothesis was correct. Although the girls did have a better time of turning the spinning girl.

Possible applications At your next birthday party you can have your dad or some other man cut your cake for an even share.

Causes for Error The cake pieces weren’t all equally sized so I just measured by if they cut it exactly.

Sources